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Movies | Written by Zachary Fox 12/11/2013

Starburst Box Office Report: THOR, THOR, THOR… THOR!

Because we're Starburst and we love everything sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, the Box Office Reports from now on will focus exclusively on those genres, just for you lovely readers out there. Peace and Love.

There was only one new release in the States this week. It happened to involve the God of Thunder though, so we’ve still got some pretty chunky numbers to chew through.

After unceremoniously conquering the UK last week, THOR: THE DARK WORLD finally crash-landed in the Land of the Free, gleefully continuing its path of destruction through everyone’s wallets and purses. Well, mostly wallets, as a huge 62% of THOR 2’s audience was male.

So, after opening in 3841 locations, THOR 2 enjoyed a healthy AVENGERS bump and hammer-smashed $86.1 million out of its adoring fans. It’s not quite good enough to join the prestigious “Super Hero Films that Debuted Over $100 Million” club (they’re working on a new name) but it does mark a 31% increase over the first THOR.

It hasn’t performed as well as IRON MAN 3 – which enjoyed a 36% bump over its predecessor on its way to becoming the year’s highest grossing film – but that may be because IRON MAN 3 got to introduce 3D to the mix, whereas the original THOR already had it and THOR 2 has actually underperformed on the 3D front with it accounting for just 39%. With competition from GRAVITY (which added $8.5 million in its 6th week for a $231.1 million gross) and to a lesser extent ENDER’S GAME, it was always going to be tough to dominate the 3D/IMAX markets.

THOR 2 should hold strongly – an A- CinemaScore bodes well – until HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE shows up in a couple of weeks.

Talking about ENDER’S GAME however…oh dear. It’s gone from top dog to nowhere in a flash, hemorrhaging 62.1% from last week with a weekend total of $10.3 million. In 10 days it’s grossed $44 million, which puts it behind the year’s proverbial paste-eater AFTER EARTH.

It was better news for FREE BIRDS however, with the animated film holding very strongly (down just 29.3%) and picking up $11.2 million.

The rest of our sci-fi/fantasy/horror loveliness comes outside of the overall Top 10 this week, with Richard Curtis’ ABOUT TIME performing best after being pushed nationwide in its second week. It picked up $4.8 million, which is…fine, really. It’s the sort of film that’ll hang around for a wee while, so its final total should be decent.

All of the other entrants are now well entrenched in the realm of post-release with all now being over a month old, but kudos to DESPICABLE ME 2 for still registering a crazy 19 weeks after it first released.

The inevitable DESPICABLE ME 3 is going to cause some kind of fiscal pandemic by the looks of things.